a lifeline to academics at risk

On 28 November 2016 Cara’s Executive Director, Stephen Wordsworth, who is also Vice-Chair of the New York-based Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA), presented the GCPEA’s latest paper to UNESCO delegation members at a meeting at UNESCO headquarters in Paris.

The Guide to Implementing the Principles of State Responsibility to Protect Higher Education from Attack aims to help states to protect higher education by providing technical direction on implementing GCPEA’s ‘Principles’ paper, which was launched at UNESCO in April 2016. The Guide sets out a variety of measures which states, working with the higher education sector, can take to deter violent or coercive attacks on higher education and institutional autonomy. A Syrian scholar who had been forced to flee his homeland and who is now working in Europe also gave an account of his experiences.